Sathya Rao

Translating beyond philosophy: An essay on transfiction

In this presentation, we will argue that philosophy, particularly its ethical and hermeneutic strands, has continually produced fictions about translation, the most well known of which are those of Berman and Venuti. Having redefined itself from the standpoint of ethics, Translation Studies as a discipline is now rediscovering its hermeneutical heritage in the writings of translation scholars like Larisa Cercel. Adopting a perspective that draws on Laruelle’s non-philosophy, we will argue that translation theory can only be reflected in philosophy in a limited way, namely, as an exceptional (or paradigmatic) form of hermeneutics or as a privileged manifestation of alterity (in language). With this in mind, our objective will be to invent – more radically than Benjamin – a new direction for translation based on non-philosophy. We will contrast this new approach with the translational pseudo-fictions of ethics and hermeneutics.

Keywords: non-philosophy, fiction, Translation Studies

Biography

Sathya Rao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, where he teaches translation. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Université Paris X Nanterre, a DEA in Philosophy, and two Master’s degrees, one in English and the other in Philosophy. He was the recipient of the Canadian Association of Translation Studies Vinay-Darbelnet Prize in 2006. His research concentrates primarily on the relation between philosophy and translation. His most recent publication, Philosophies et non-philosophie de la traduction. Essai de tradu-fiction, was released in 2014.